Posts tagged ‘Alcohol Ink’

OK the wait is over. I promised you a never before seen project to share with you and I’m ready to make good. Here is my “Alice in Wonderland” inspired wall hanging. I made this wall hanging this past weekend and it was a total labor or love. I haven’t been this into a project in a long time…I basically ditched everything I was supposed to do this past Sunday so I could finish it. Bad Mommy! Oh well I’m over the guilt..it was worth it.

I got the idea to do this project Saturday when I was down in my cellar (the one I was supposed to clean on Sunday) and I noticed all my unused empty CD cases sitting on the shelf. I used to keep all my stamps in them so I have a bunch. Well I thought what a waste…I really should do something with those. So I grabbed six and headed to my scrap room.

Because they are acrylic, my first thought was I had to do something with alcohol inks. From that thought on, the project just took on a life of its own. I needed some pictures for my project so I played around in PSE and discovered I really like the stamped effect so I converted a couple pics to “stamped”. After I printed out a few to play with the idea of Alice in Wonderland came to mind… and that’s how I came up with the design to do the large image with the 3D foreground. It’s perfect for my daughter because we call her Alice sometimes because she has her head in the clouds and has quite the imagination.

I know it sounds a little complicated but it really wasn’t. It was a little time consuming but it was super simple to do and I will walk you through the steps.

Step 1 – Select Pictures – I chose pictures of my daughter that were evenly lit. Shadows tend to cause issues when you do the “stamp” effect. Also I chose pictures where her eyes were well lit and clearly visible. Again this is because of the stamped effect…squinty or dark eyes don’t look so well.

Step 2 – Apply Stamped Effect – Once you select your pictures, you’ll need to edit them. I used PSE 5. I just did the basic edits to clean up stray hairs and things like that in the photo but because it was going to be converted to black and white, I really didn’t need to tweek colors or anything. Once your initial edit is done, you can do the “stamped” effect. This is super simple to do. For future reference, if I can do it in PSE it has to be easy because I really don’t know what I’m doing. So to convert your image to stamped, simply open the effects option, which is shown above your layers palette. When the drop down opens, you’ll see a bunch of options and above will be a new bar…look for the drop down menu and select “sketch”. Once you select “sketch” you will see another array of options, the “stamped” option is in there. Just click on the “stamped” icon and hit apply. A new window will open showing your image in “stamped” form. You can click under the image and select “fit to screen” to see it better. In that new window, you can make some adjustments if you want. If you slide the light/dark slider to the right, you will get more detail, to the left, less detail. I opted for less detail because I wanted her eyes to be more transparent so I could tint them after. I left the smoothness at 5, that seems to give a good image. Once you get it the way you want, click OK. Don’t be dissapointed if some of the images don’t look so great in stamped form, this part of the process is trial and error. It took me a while to find pictures that worked well.

Step 3 – Crop, Resize and Print – So now you have your pictures “stamped” you will need to crop them to your liking. I cropped mine so that my daughters face took up approximately half of the image, I also cropped it so it was not a full head shot, basically I chopped the back of her head off. You then need to resize the image to fit the dimensions of the front of the CD case. Since I’m not sure how uniform CD cases are I won’t quote measurements. You can figure it out with a scrap piece of paper. After you have the image croped and resized, it’s time to print but before you do, you need to reverse it. So if you want your final image to face left, you have to print it facing right. Once you reverse the image, you can go ahead and print this on a transparency.

About the CD case…when I got mine, I popped out the hub to use for stamp storage so if you buy them, you will need to do the same before you can do anything. Once I popped out the hub, I unhinged the 2 pieces. For the most part you are only working with one piece (what I refer to as the front). The front is longer than the back and it sits inside the back when put together, the back has the clips on it to hold the cd cover in and is a little shorter to accomodate when it is opened. Hope that made sense.

Step 4 – Adding The Backround – So now you have your printed transparency you need to add the color to the background. Use your alcohol inks and an applicator (I just use pieces of white felt) to add color to the PRINTED side of your transparency. If you’ve never used alcohol inks … I can tell you 2 things…one, they are super easy and fun to use and two, you can find tutorials all over then internet. Couple tips to keep in mind while coloring your transparency…alcohol inks spread, so when adding color near the image, don’t go to close as to avoid the color bleeding onto the face…also since your working on the backside of the image, apply your main color first, and then apply your other colors. After I did my background, I used a q-tip to apply a little color to my daughters eyes. I also found it looked best if you only tint one feature on the face, if you want to tint the lips, then don’t do the eyes and vis-a-versa.

Step 5 – Embellishing – So now that your image is printed and the background is colored, go ahead and flip your transparency over. Important– before you start embellishing your image you need to cut the transparency to size to fit inside the CD case. Once you add the embellishments this will be very hard to do. Once you are sure it’s cut to size, you can start adding the 3D foreground. I used a bunch of my punches and my cricut to create all the tree elements. The tree branch is off the Storybook cartridge… I cut them in multiples and then glued and stacked each die cut to make it the thickness of chipboard. You can get really creative with this part of the project and use all sorts of fun stuff…flowers, birds, snowflakes, butterflies…whatever you would like. Once you have all your embellishments selected, you’ll need to assemble them and adhere them to the transparency. Since the transparency is slick, not all glue will work. I used elmers liquid glue for the really small stuff and glue dots for everything else. I also used lots of pop up dots to give lots of dimension. Once I was done with my embellishments, I added a few final touches like stickles and white paint for snow. Once your all done, set it aside until the glue is dry.

Step 6 – Making the wall hanging – while your images dry, this is the time to prepare the cases to be assembled. First you will need to drill 2 small holes on each end of the CD case to string the fishing line through. It’s best to pop them back together at this point so they are more sturdy to drill into. The holes on the bottom of each case will actually be in the back of the case, and the holes on top will actually be in the front of the CD case. Once you drill the holes, take the case apart again and put the front aside. Measure out a piece of fishing line that is more than double the length of your wallhanging.

Step 7 – Final Assembly – Once your images are dry, you can place them in the front of your CD case with the image facing out. Now put that aside for a moment. You will start assembling from the bottom of your wall hanging up. Take your fishing line and insert it through the two bottom holes of the CD case and pull the line so that each side is even. Pull the lines up towards the top of the CD Case. Now put a few pop up dots around the back of the case to support the image on the front. You have to do this because of the clips on the side…if not only the sides of the image will be raised and the center will sag. Once you have the pop up dots in place you can snap the front of the CD cover back in place. Now the first one is done. Thread the line through the top 2 holes of the case and then add some seed beads to the line on each side to act as spacers. Repeat until you have all the cases strung together. Then you just tie a knot in the line at the top and your done!